Zoquette
by Raynedark
Summary: RyuichixTohma. Ryuichi tries to kill the pain of forbidden love. Rated for drug use. Inspired by the song Black Balloon by The Goo Goo Dolls. One shot.


"Comin' down the world turned over

And angels fall without you there

And I go on as you get colder

All because I'm

Comin' down the years turn over

And angels fall without you there

And I'll go and lead you home and

All because I'm

All because I'm

And I'll become

What you became to me"

-Black Balloon; The Goo Goo Dolls

Don't own Gravitation or Black Balloon. Do own this fic.

He winced a little as he slipped the cold, thin tip of the needle beneath his skin. There was a stinging sensation as the liquid entered his bloodstream. He took the needle out and felt his arm burn, then numb. So this was supposed to make him feel better? He didn't feel anything. Yet.

That guy had said that it would kick in really fast. He tossed the needle across the room and heard the glass chamber on it shatter. The dark room he sat in pulsed. Something seemed to crawl up his spine.

Suddenly that darkness seemed like the greatest thing in the world. He felt a giddy smile spread all over his face. He felt himself let out a little laugh. Euphoria over took his body. Not even singing really well to a sold out, totally amped up crowd felt like this. That was a different happy. That was a natural high.

Ryuichi frowned a little. A natural high? Was this cold, modern approach to happiness wrong? No, it couldn't be. This great feeling that was all over him; there was nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with feeling so good.

Not even thoughts of Tohma could bring him down now.

He became warm at the thought, and the pleasure seeping through him increased. He laughed at the thought of Tohma.

Tohma Seguchi. He played the keyboard in a really famous band. He was part of that band. He was taking a drug now, and he was part of that band that Tohma was in.

His memory flooded around him as he sat in hysterics; laughing to the point of tears. That first night. Their opening show. He remembered the nervous feeling. He couldn't feel that now though, he felt too good now. But he could still remember.

Tohma had look at him as they waited to take the stage. "God, I hope this goes well. Aren't you nervous?" He had shaken his head. He was doing so now.

"No way. This is going to be killer!" Ryuichi mumbled the words between bursts of giggles as he remembered. He was walking out on the stage waving to the crowd. He was stumbling around the black, empty room waving at wraiths of the past.

Taking the microphone, he had made a brief introduction. "But you're here to hear us make some music. So lets go!" Music played in the background of his mind. It was strangely distorted and seemed to ebb and flow around him. He wrapped his hands around the air and sang into a non-existent microphone. His words were slow and slurred, but he smiled and sang to the no ones there with him.

"Thank you, enjoy the rest of the show!" he stumbled backwards and found the wall. Sliding down, he remembered the cruddy dressing room chair he was sitting in.

"That was great! Everyone was so amped!" The yellow light of the little room seemed to seep out of his mind and fill his murky room. Tohma, the guy in the band that wouldn't bring him down now, smiled and nodded. "I think we can go far. Did you see the reaction?"

"Yeah," he whispered to the room, "They were a great crowd. I really like playing to crowds like that."

He burst out laughing again and purely enjoying the warmth and delight he was experiencing. Closing his eyes and tilting his head back, he let the raindrops fall into his mouth. They weren't in the room, but they were at that performance, the one where they got picked up.

"Ukai san, Seguchi san, Sakuma san!" the little man had shouted to them across the dreary parking lot as they packed their stuff into Noriko's little car. They all looked up and across out through the rain.

The small bald man came up and introduced himself as a scout for a local record label. "We think that you have a great potential and we really want to hone that. Stop by my office tomorrow around nine if you will." He handed the card to Tohma, that guy that wouldn't bring him down, and walked off. Tohma looked to the girl with purple hair that owned the car, Noriko, and laughed. He looked at Ryuichi and smiled.

It was such a pretty smile. There was gentle laughter in his eyes. His entire visage was alight with joy and the rain. "Can you believe it!?" the purple haired girl that was also a part of the band that he was in shouted as they drove off.

"I know. Scouted so early! A pro saying we have potential! Isn't that great?"

"Yeah. Unbelievable."

"Aren't you happy about this Ryu?"

"Yeah, just hasn't sunk in." The room was still listening to his meaningless mumblings. He recalled that feeling of goodness. It wasn't like this warm pleasure that coursed through his veins now. That feeling was more in his chest-- his heart. It was buried though, stifled. He didn't want to get to much hope. He didn't want to be to trusting. He didn't want to get disappointed.

It was still exciting though. Unbelievable, but it took a while to sink in. He hadn't registered it. "Is this for real?" he had whispered to Tohma in the shared bed at the cheap motel. "Is this for real?" he whispered to the beautiful boy next to him that was beaming with glory, excitement, and joy.

"It is real," he whispered back, a shimmering smile adorning his face. He closed his eyes to go to sleep. A light seemed to have been stifled. Some still radiated from his face above the covers, but it was less. "Cool, very cool," Ryuichi whispered and tried not to scream with sudden excitement. "'Night Tohma."

He didn't answer. Entirely upon a whim, he leaned over and kissed Tohma's forehead. "Cool," he whispered, and treasured the feeling of soft skin against his lips.

"No!" He shouted to the Ryuichi that was there before him in the empty room. That was a bad thing to do. Abnormal. Strange. Bad.

Bad, bad, bad.

But the wraith Ryuichi didn't listen. He just went to sleep and got picked up by a record label, and released a single, and a CD, and played a lot of concerts.

He tried to stand and push through the cloudy images, but he couldn't. There was a happy heaviness in his legs. They were weighted down with elation. He tried to brush it all away, but his arms were heavy with ecstasy. So he just watched. Each little goodnight kiss, done in a secret way after Tohma was asleep.

Tohma. He wasn't going to ruin this. He was feeling to good to worry about Tohma. Instead he thought of the crazy little pink haired boy. He was a great kid. He was Ryuichi on that rainy night. That Ryuichi with great potential. He was also Ryuichi that kissed another boy goodnight. He was also strange.

But people liked his strangeness. His strangeness made him popular. It wouldn't work for Ryuichi though, that kid had already done it. He couldn't do the same trick and hope to pull it off just as well.

There was that night where that kid, the one with the pink hair, had almost let everyone know his secret too early. Ryuichi was there that night. He sang with the kid then. That was so much fun. Adrenaline coursing through him as he walked through the crowd and made up that story and then felt the lights on him.

The total joy of just plain having fun with a good bunch of musicians in front of a bunch of good fun loving people. Yeah, that was great. What a rush. But a different kind of rush. That was all instinct and impulse.

This rush now came from a needle and a strange liquid that was illegal. This rush wasn't really real. It was derived from a plant and shipped around the world secretly. This rush was induced. But that didn't take away from the fact that it was a rush, that it was a blissful feeling.

He laughed and tried to sing along to the songs playing in his memory. He couldn't though, he found that his tongue was dry, he couldn't wet his mouth, and the sounds he made were raw and arid. Ryuichi laughed at the stupid sounds. He could do better than this-- he just needed water.

No water though. His legs were to full of happiness to move. Oh well. He laughed and let the wretched sound out. When the song was finished, he tipped over.

"My stomach doesn't feel to well," he whispered to himself backstage, waiting in the dark for their cue. This show was their biggest yet. He had to pretend that it was just another normal show. There were no big trucks, satellites, or cameras.

Okay, the cameras and cars weren't there. They had disappeared. The fact that this was being beamed around the world vanished. The fact that those millions were judging them was gone.

They went out on stage. Everything went as planned. He watched himself singing.

"Hey," Ryuichi whispered, "that isn't the best that you can do." His image bent down to look at him. "Yes it is."

"You're lying."

"No I'm not. This is the best that I can do."

"No! You can do better! That's only a sliver of what you can really do!"

It wasn't though. That night was awful. That was the night he kissed Tohma. That was the night that he had really kissed another guy.

"I'm so sorry!" he had shocked himself when he found his lips on the blonde's backstage. "No," Tohma's arms lingered around Ryuichi's shoulders, "It's alright. I was wondering about this."

There was a tougher, fiercer look in his eyes now. It wasn't the same as the innocence of that first night's little kiss. That little goodnight. There was a menace and allure to those eyes now too. Tohma traced Ryuichi's lips with a finger. "What is it that you want?" An arm was still around the singer's shoulders.

"Nothing. I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me, I have to go!" He broke free of those arms and went to the bathroom. The door was locked and he was alone. He couldn't help the sick feeing in his stomach.

He couldn't help the vomit that trickled out the side of his mouth onto the floor in the dim room. He was alone there too. The absolute joy was fading. The nice warmth was leaving him. He called out to them, "Come back. He wasn't supposed to ruin this!" The feelings didn't listen to him-- they were gone.

The sudden loss of warmth left him shivering, and the abrupt extraction of elation left him exhausted. He felt the bitter taste of bile in his parched mouth, and he felt the sticky wetness of it on his cheek and matting in his hair.

The room went out of focus around him. Ryuichi's eyes watered as he yawned. What was this sudden lethargy? It was nice though. A little sleep would get rid of those fuzzy pictures and memories. He could wake up all better. He closed his eyes to bid farewell to the images, only to find them on the inside of his eyelids.

The colors were distorted though, and it was an effort to focus. There was something about water on his face that was very cold and somewhere there was a hollow banging. "Go away!" What was wrong with his voice? There was a slow, deep shell around his real words.

There was a slow, deep knocking that was sheltering a sharp rapping that was somewhere in the real world. He didn't want either of those worlds though. He couldn't concentrate enough to make sense of the fogged images coming to him. Suddenly the words were gone, it was all just noise that meant nothing and didn't match up to the shapes his mouth was making in the mirror in the fuzzy bathroom backstage.

Ryuichi was sinking into sleep. His breathing was becoming slow and calm, but he still shivered. His memories were fading away, but he still heard noise. It was all being dismissed though. There was a blackness waiting for him. A state of pure unconsciousness.

"Ryuichi let me in! I want to know what went on at the show last night. You weren't even half of what you usually are. Did my kiss scare you? I'm sorry, I should have moved like that." Tohma pounded on the door to the apartment and shouted the words, careless to who may be listening.

"Ryuichi?" He peered through the peephole. All was black. It looked like furniture had been moved, but the fish eye distortion of the little hole made things difficult to judge. "Ryuichi?"

"Go… away." The words were slurred and pained with effort.

"Are you alright? Ryuichi?" There was no answer. A little fear knotted in the pit of Tohma's stomach as he searched the top of the doorframe for a spare key. Sure enough there was one. He pulled it off the little shelf and caught it. He opened the door until it was jerked to a stop by the chain.

"Ryuichi let me in." There was no reply still. Tohma peered through the slit in the doorway. Furniture had been moved. All piled off into one corner, and there was something jagged on the floor shining from the glow of the city.

The fear began to chew through Tohma's stomach and rose to his chest making his heart race. Without a second thought, he backed up and aimed a kick at the door. Once, twice-- it gave way and flung open hitting the wall.

"Ryuichi!" He ran into the room and felt something crunch under his shoes. Lifting his foot he saw the shattered glass of the needle. "Ryu, what are you doing?" He tried to stay calm, but he could hear the waver of terror in his voice. He looked around the dark room and found the singer sprawled out next to a wall. There was a pool of something around his head.

"Please don't be blood," he whispered as he strode across the room. Each step echoed through him with a new horror.

He knelt down before the other man. "R-Ryuichi?" He placed a hand on his shoulder and bent to examine the pool. He recoiled and pulled the singer up and out of the bile. With out regard to his clothing, Tohma wiped up Ryuichi's cheek and set his head into his lap.

Ryuichi's cheeks were flushed and warm, as if with fever, and he was sleeping deeply. "Hey, hey wake up." Tohma shook him a little. With an agonizing slowness Ryuichi opened his eyes. They seemed clouded and glassy.

"What have you done? Are you okay? What did you do?" Tohma couldn't help but fire rapid questions. The singer opened his mouth and whispered, "I did something bad, Tohma. I kissed you."

"That wasn't bad Ryuichi, that was love! Don't you love me?"

"I did something bad," he whispered gradually, "A drug. A mean drug-- heroin."

"What?! Why on earth would you do something stupid like that? Ryuichi that stuff can kill you."

"I know," he smiled.

The blonde's eyes widened in horror, "Why?"

"I wanted to forget Tohma. I wanted to feel better. I don't want to love you. It's wrong."

"No, it isn't wrong to be in love. It's wrong to try and kill it, to try and kill the pain. You have to have a little pain in your life or you can't really say that you're alive."

"I've lived then. For a long time I've lived."

They were quiet for a moment. Tohma staring in dread, sadness and guilt, and Ryuichi staring off at nothing. He was feeling his heart beating slower and slower. He was feeling the air get heavier, and his lungs moving slower. So he would live with pain and die with pain?

"No," he whispered to the thought, grabbing Tohma's attention.

"No what?"

"I don't want to die with pain. I want to die happy. Die shining. Make me die shining."

"Isn't that in a song? Kill me shining?" Humor wasn't going to lighten the mood. "Besides," Tohma almost choked on impending tears, "you aren't dying." He had lied to himself. He could feel the singer's breathing slowing, but he wouldn't believe it. "You aren't dying," he said as if to reinforce the statement, to somehow make it true. "How much did you take anyway? A little bit can't kill you, but you aren't dying."

"A lot. The needle was full. I just wanted to feel better. I didn't want to die. Tohma!" They were both scared now. There was nothing Tohma could do though, except hold him and kiss his forehead and all over his face.

"Shh," he cooed as much for himself as the man dying in his arms. "Shh, I love you Ryuichi. Shh. Everything- everything is going to be-" he couldn't finish the sentence. Tears racked him as he held Ryuichi close and felt the life draining away. He could almost see the shine that had always emanated from him seep away into the air.

Neither could speak anymore. They only could count the seconds, each an infinity of new love and old pain. Ryuichi wrapped his arms around Tohma and held on tightly as his body fought for breath. Tohma held him just as tightly back and kissed into his hair, and cried quietly.

Ryuichi's arms loosened around Tohma's waist. Tohma bit back a raging sob and just pulled Ryuichi's body closer. He knew that the singer wasn't there anymore, but it was something tangible that was left of him.

That was how he was found in the morning. Clinging to the handsome body that once housed a beautiful spirit.

OK. There you go. I finally killed Ryuichi. I've been meaning to do that. Gomen nasai Ryu chan. Gomen nasai Ryuichi lovers. I was just inspired after a long bout of writer's block so I had to give it a shot. Sorry if it's really crappy and cliché tell me what you think.

And a big thanks to HULY san for getting me into RP-ing and pretty much lighting my way towards this pairing. It all goes back to Australia ; Also thanks for your honesty, it means a lot.

Also, the title, Zoquette, needs explaining. Zoquette is a street name for Heroin (At least that's what the fact sheet said). I just thought it was a nice name, good sound and all.

But right, tell me what you thought, onegai!

Ja!


End file.
